HUGH THOMPSON

On the morning of March 16, 1968, the U.S.Army began a simple mission, based onintelligence reports that had labeled the villageof My Lai as a place swarming with Viet Cong.The crew in one of the helicopters flying aboverealized that there was no enemy fire and thatsome sort of atrocity was happening. ChiefWarrant Officer Hugh Thompson was incommand of that one helicopter.

Hugh Thompson is an ordinary man known for an extraordinaryact of courage. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia on April 15,1943. His father, Hugh Thompson, Sr., served in both the Armyand the Navy in World War II and was in the Naval Reserves formore than 30 years. After going to high school in StoneMountain, Georgia, young Hugh joined the Navy in 1961 andwas a heavy equipment operator with the Seabees. In 1964,Hugh Thompson got out of the Navy and became a funeraldirector in Stone Mountain. In 1966, he joined the Army, andby 1967, he was done with flight school and off to Vietnam. Afterhis Vietnam service, Thompson moved to Fort Rucker, Alabamato become an instructor pilot and later got his direct commission.His other military assignments included: Fort Jackson, SouthCarolina; Korea; Fort Ord, California; Fort Hood, Texas; andpoints in Hawaii. Hugh Thompson retired from the military in1983. In 2005, he retired as a veterans assistance counselorsupervisor for the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs.

After a long letter-writing campaign begun by Professor DavidEgan of Clemson University, who thought Hugh Thompson wasa true American hero who had yet to get the recognition hedeserved, Hugh Thompson was awarded the Soldiers Medal inWashington, D.C. on March 6, 1998. This ceremony was daysbefore Hugh Thompson and fellow crewman Larry Colburn were scheduled to return to Vietnam to visit My Lai and some of the people they had saved, 30 years after that dark day inAmerican history.

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MORAL COURAGE IN COMBAT: THE MY LAI STORY

Welcome and Introduction, Dr. Albert C. Pierce, Director,Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics

Videotape Presentation

Lecture by Hugh Thompson

Questions and Answers

This evening was supported through the generosity of William C. Stutt, USNA Class of 1949.

This is an edited, abridged version of the original lecture transcript.

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WELCOME

Dr. PierceLadies and gentlemen, on behalf of Admiral Rempt, theSuperintendent, and all of us at the Center for the Study ofProfessional Military Ethics, I want to welcome you to the fall2003 William C. Stutt Ethics Lecture. This lecture is part of alarger series which we at the Ethics Center began in the spring of1999. Last year, a generous gift from Bill Stutt, Naval AcademyClass of 1949, endowed this fall lecture so that we can do oneevery fall with the support of Bill and Caroline Stutt. While theselectures are open to the whole Naval Academy community, ourprimary audience is the midshipmen enrolled in NE-203, and Imdelighted to see them here this evening.

Every third class midshipman at the Naval Academy learns aboutMy Lai while taking NE-203, so its especially appropriate thatwe have as our speaker tonight Hugh C. Thompson, Jr., one ofthe only three heroes that day at My Lai. The theme of theirheroic actions was captured nicely long before that day in thewords of General Douglas MacArthur. The soldier, be he friendor foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed.It is the very essence and reason of his being. It is, MacArthursaid, a sacred trust.

To set the stage for Hugh Thompsons remarks this evening, weregoing to show a short video segment from 60 Minutes. ThenHugh Thompson himself will take the podium immediately afterthe video. Hell talk for 25 or 30 minutes, and then well open upthe floor to questions.

Because he will come on stage directly after the video, Im goingto say a few words about him now, although you have a fullerbiography in your program.

There are many ways to describe Hugh Thompsona proud sonof Stone Mountain, Georgia; a soldier; an extraordinary humanbeing; an ordinary human being who behaved with extraordinarymoral and physical courage on the morning of March 16th, 1968.But I think there is no better way to describe Hugh Thompson

than the words of the citation accompanying the Soldiers Medal,which he was awarded almost 30 years after My Lai.I will read you that citation. Soldiers Medal, Hugh C.Thompson, Jr., then Warrant Officer One, United States Army:

For heroism above and beyond the call of duty on 16 March 1968, while saving the lives of at least 10Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre ofnoncombatants by American forces at My Lai, QuangNgai Province, South Vietnam. Warrant OfficerThompson landed his helicopter in the line of fire betweenfleeing Vietnamese civilians and pursuing Americanground troops to prevent their murder. He thenpersonally confronted the leader of the American groundtroops and was prepared to open fire on those Americantroops should they fire upon the civilians. Warrant OfficerThompson, at the risk of his own personal safety, wentforward of the American lines and coaxed the Vietnamesecivilians out of the bunker to enable their evacuation.Leaving the area after requesting and overseeing thecivilians air evacuation, his crew spotted movement in aditch filled with bodies south of My Lai Four. WarrantOfficer Thompson again landed his helicopter and coveredhis crew as they retrieved a wounded child from the pile ofbodies. He then flew the child to the safety of a hospital atQuang Ngai. Warrant Officer Thompsons relayed radioreports of the massacre and subsequent report to hissection leader and commander resulted in an order for thecease fire at My Lai and an end to the killing of innocentcivilians. Warrant Officer Thompsons Heroismexemplifies the highest standards of personal courage andethical conduct, reflecting distinct credit on him, and theUnited States Army.

Please roll the videotape.

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VIDEOTAPE PRESENTATION

Segment from 60 Minutes

Mike WallaceOver the past 30 years, weve reported several stories on one ofthe most shameful events in American military history. Tonight,we add another chapter about the massacre by American troopsof 504 civilians, most of them women, old men, and children. Ithappened in Vietnam in 1968 in a tiny hamlet called My Lai, andthe carnage would have been even worse had it not been for thevalor of three men on an American helicopter who put their ownlives at risk, confronted their fellow American soldiers, andstopped the killing. We have now learned that, for three decades,these men were treated not as heroes but as traitors. We begintonight with a story they told us last year.

To try to understand what happened at My Lai, we asked HughThompson, the man on the righthe was the pilot of thechopper, and Larry Colburn, the gunner, to go back with us toVietnam. The third member of the crew, Glenn Andreotta, waskilled in action in Vietnam just three weeks after the My Laimassacre. They told us there about that day 30 years ago, f lyingin their chopper, low over My Lai, trying to draw enemy fire andto protect the American GIs on the ground. What they saw fromthe air they said sickened them, shamed them.

Young, inexperienced troops who had been told that My Lai wasan enemy stronghold were rounding up civilians, not takingprisoners. They burned down huts with their Zippo lighters, andthen their leaders ordered them to line up the terrified villagersgooks or dinks or slopes they were calledand shoot them downin cold blood. The killing went on for four hours.

Later, the Army tried to cover up the fact that the victims, all ofthem, were unarmed women, old men, children. Even morewould have been murdered if Thompson and Colburn had notintervened, landing their helicopter near a rice paddy to rescuesome of the villagers.

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Mr. ThompsonOne hundred seventy people were marched down in there,women, old men, babies. GIs stood up on the side with theirweapons on full automatic and machine gun fire.

Mr. ColburnThere were no weapons captured. There were no draft-age maleskilled. They were civilians.

Mike WallaceAnd then, as the chopper hovered, Glenn Andreotta saw a youngchild still alive in the ditch.

Mr. ColburnGlenn without hesitation went into the ditch and waded over tothe child, who was still

Mike WallaceDitch full of bodies?

Mr. ColburnYes, sir.

Mr. ThompsonOh, it was full, sir.

Mike WallaceFull of blood?

Mr. ColburnYes, sir. Some of the people were stillthey were dying. Theywerent all dead, and Glenn got to the child and picked him upand

Mike WallaceIt was a boy?

Mr. ColburnI think it was a little boy, yes.

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Mr. ThompsonI remember thinking that I had a son, you know, that same age.

Mike WallaceAs Thompson was recalling the horrors of that day, an elderlywoman walked toward us. She said that she had been dumped ina ditch back in 1968 but had survived, shielded by the bodies ofthe dead and dying.

Mr. ThompsonSorry we couldnt help you that day. Thank you very much.

WomanThank you very much.

Mr. ThompsonYes, maam.

Mike WallaceWhy, she wanted to know, were so many villagers killed that day,and why was Thompson different from the rest of the Americans?

Mr. ThompsonI saved the people because I wasnt taught to murder and kill. Icant answer for the people who took part in it. I apologize forthe ones who did, and I just wish we could have helped morepeople that day.

Mike WallaceIn fact, they did help more people. Thompson and Colburnfound 10 villagers cowering in a bunker. They radioed for acouple of choppers, which airlifted all of them to safety.

And we managed to f